Okay relatively new to Neverwinter, I had fun under level 60, my playstyle is casual, I don't have a guild, perfer to solo play until I can not.
After hitting level 60+ on my SW it seems all solo content has dried up. Don't get me wrong here, I LIKE this game, but lately it seems more like work then play. I am not looking for stupidly hard, a challenge, yes, but things seem well overly hard now.
I am not looking for build advice or to be told "Tactics" when you are trying to do dailies in Ice Wind and a Dire Polarbear almost wipes your HP down to a 1/4 with on swipe when you are looking for survivors and oh joy there are two.
The HP and regen some of these mobs have are insane.
Again, I am not looking to one shot stuff, but a 15 minute fight with a mob just to finish a quest like finding Blighted Acorns and that AP drain that a SW can't seem to interupt or get enough distance from, it makes this game more work then play when you solo and then I watch these other classes tear through them like it was nothing.
Makes me feel a little punished for playing a SC and a lot more for playing solo. I don't know, anyway I expect a lot of, "You are running the wrong build" or you should party more.
Still haven't finished most of my dailies in IWD because well everyone seems happy running a big circle Farming the HE and Briggins.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"If Stupidity got us into this, why can't it get us out?"
If you are going to scream "HEAL" at me and then curse at me because the heals are not coming fast enough for you liking, please have the common curiosity to do it in English, so I can laugh as you die. I play a vamp not a priest because I am not a heal bot.
Dont forget that old daily quests in areas like Sharandar, Dread Ring and IWD are now post lvl 70 content. If youre in these areas before youre lvl 70 you will be one shot. Lvl 60+ players must hit 70 first before going back to old dailies.
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
I agree. One of the biggest faults of "module" 6 was the substantial increase in difficulty of the campaign areas. They should've kept those at the solo-friendly difficulty levels of the prior modules. I don't ever remember reading one serious complaint that the campaign areas were too easy...they should be.
People were asking for more challenging group content, which they got.
My one big question for you is, are you using "at level" blue gear? First, if you're not level 70, just get to level 70. Don't worry too much about the campaign areas until you're 70. They are too hard and too much of a grind for anyone level 61-69.
Second, when you turn 70, look on the AH for some cheap level 70 blue gear. The stats on the 70 gear is a pretty substantial upgrade, and will make doing the campaigns at 70 that much easier. After that, don't be afraid to look for help getting T1 gear. Most of those dungeons are doable, but tough...it helps to have friends to help you.
Sorry was out, my gear score is 1600+ and I didnt hit sharandar till I turned 70 and got my first piece of black ice armor. I am wearing blues for everything else. My point isn't whine page about how hard stuff is I am saying that doing anything at this point requires a group and everything has become a JOB rather then play. Spend weeks trying to get the requirements for the Boons, Kill x amount and gather Z amount. This isnt a game anymore its Job and now its like I am being punished for wanting to do stuff solo I mean I like the feel of accomplishment by doing it on my own. GW2, DDO and games like that I loved the yeah I got through this part that part solo. Here though its like I spent 20 minutes killing 2 Giantsouls and a Witherer because my soul puppet wouldn't spawn and my green companion Earth Archon was polishing his hammer rather then swinging it and my Blue Neverwinter Guard spent all his time holding his shield up screaming "Not the Face, Not the Face"
I am not even able to finish Foundry Quests listed as solo anymore.
It's depressing and as a casual player I don't play games to be made to feel weak and helpless against the the content. A 20 minute fight for one seed while you have 6 to gather to meet requirements to get 1/10 of what you need to earn a boon, thats not a game, it's work.
Do I want it handed to me? No, if I did I would pay for the unlock, but with this set up..... do not even believe paying for the unlock would be much help....
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"If Stupidity got us into this, why can't it get us out?"
If you are going to scream "HEAL" at me and then curse at me because the heals are not coming fast enough for you liking, please have the common curiosity to do it in English, so I can laugh as you die. I play a vamp not a priest because I am not a heal bot.
Oh Side note, before patch Minsc and Boo used to tear through those cultists, have you seen them fight them now? Try it, fall back a little and watch....
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"If Stupidity got us into this, why can't it get us out?"
If you are going to scream "HEAL" at me and then curse at me because the heals are not coming fast enough for you liking, please have the common curiosity to do it in English, so I can laugh as you die. I play a vamp not a priest because I am not a heal bot.
This isn't a "you're the wrong build" post--it's a "the SW is broken" post.
Had the exact same problem. I hit lvl 70, was stoked to finally "start the game" in the campaign areas, ran around to each of the three campaign areas only to get demolished by the first pack of mobs. I did grind a bit to gear up from the PVP store (I was already running level 70 blues), but even still, it's a real struggle to do anything.
On the other hand, I started a GWF, similar ilvl (~1700 for both), and it's been perfectly simple for me to solo.
The class is too weak, unfortunately. Not much else I can suggest except for try grinding forever to get enough gear to maybe survive, or start a new class. (Stupid, I know.)
I'm pretty sure it is meant to be a punishment. It was a challenging difficulty before and we asked to tone it down. Instead the devs have done the opposite and raised enemy HP which was stupid high before and made leveling take even longer, to keep players in those mind numbing vigilante areas longer...
It takes 45 minutes to do 4 spinward vigilante quests on a lvl 70 TR with 1500 ilvl and in full Alliance Raid/Assault gear... lol.
All I want is to get my Artifact MH on an alt but I don't have god tier enchants.
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ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
Yeah, the +50% HP to enemies is making me pull my hair out...I've been slowly trying to get my boons on my OP, and it's just mindnumbing to hack through mobs now. He has like a 2700 iLevel, and it still takes a couple minutes of swinging to cut through a group of mobs.
It's not fun. It's tedious.
They're taken a fast paced combat system and turned it into a slog.
I think the key thing they're missing here is
SPEED
The charm of Neverwinter's combat system was always about being fast paced, and they slowed things down to a crawl.
It's not about slogging away at a big sack of hit points. It's about deftly executing a combination of moves and seeing your enemies laid to waste.
I wonder if they've considered increasing monsters' attack speed, but reducing damage as a solution to the "one hit wonder" problem.
So you get hit (or the chance to get hit more often) but for less damage. So instead of a Spitting Spider hitting you for 60k every 3 seconds, it hits your for 20k every second. The damage and lethality is still roughly the same, but mitigation, healing and dodging become more important, without being so critically important that you're either alive or dead.
Even then, you probably need a bit of a damage nerf in there, but combat would feel a lot better if you actually saw your HP tick up and down, instead of essentially the binary state we have now where you're either full health or dead.
game is fun still but adding back all the dungeons is really needed... its good im an altaholic and just do dailies all the time because if they didnt exist i would have quit a long time ago... also only add good loot to dungeons if you do bring them back. otherwise they will remain empty or bugged
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,399Arc User
For me, this is work since I joined and it was mod 3.
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
No matter what i can agree or disagree with/to, there are still some opportunities to play "how u want" and "what u want". Altaholic casuals have it easier (even that i considered some STO quest/s/lines much nicer when i tried it, the main line here is not that bad to call it utter trash - no matter how close am to in case of both), but still there are areas and contents equal to an average singleplayer games, with wider progression.
Targeting max and BiS is supposed to be hard, long term goal and this game is still far from what i experienced and clearly took for "insane" or "impossible" in other MMOs. Its sad from a particular point of view, but still there are some foundry projects worth spending time in and the 70 lvl areas and T1s are either easy enough or possible to do after a while.
Domination or any PvP is, was and always be about "impossible" for players not spending lots of money or a lot of time (botnet managers/owners excluded - well its still money lost when such botnet is not rent).
Just dont fall for any "have to", play for fun and if there is no fun for u, dont play at all. Vast majority of games, especially MMOs, are based on trying to manage "spent time and currency"-"feel rewarded" ratio, which sooner or later fail, simply because its a virtual "nothing to get, nothing to lose" world, every sane being concludes to, and rarely a game developer do things for the sake of quality or real life values (being it sole entertainment even).
Not sure ive expressed it well enough, but rly, such forum threads or "contemplations" are pretty valueless, unless its a ground school topic (and that will rarely happen as well, because it would ...plenty of things).
A bit nosy NW-DKG7E99X6
"Hardcore" exploration journey and dungeon crawl. Read its description prior to trying it.
only part that seems like "work" to me is the over level at 70...
I know until i hit 2k+ GS, the campaigns were.. difficult (ice wind dale was just about impossible), one thing i think they did that inadvertently hurt was the removal of all blue gear drops (except from dungeons) so the level 70 blue gear is FAIRLY expensive on the AH, and then the missing dungeons seem to really hurt getting "decent" gear to start doing the harder skirmishes/dungeons (epics), for me personally the only way i saw to get decent gear, was do PvP for the level 130 sets they had.. the little pvp event they just had really would of made that easier a few months back
once i had that gear though honestly the campaigns became soloable again EXCEPT for the dungeon in well of dragons, and after that is just the slow progression of building up boons, doing epics (1600 for some artifacts) then moving onto the 2k ones...
i think the gear progression was kinda scrambled/lost when they went to 70 cap.. and changed so much... also gear progression seems... minor at times, like the 130 to 137 does not seem that huge.. it helps more almost to get rank 10-12 runes for your items...
the FINAL thing they did that messed with people however, was the way stats scaled on the bonus vs your level.. it was sooooo weird to level 60-70 and see ALL my % for crit/power/defense/deflect go DOWN as i leveled.. because the way the numbers scale with higher levels.. THAT is messed up and honestly i think discourages and confuses players..
Overall difficulty
XP rewards in the new zones and campaign zones
Invocation
Hourly quests
Zone re-use
Removed dungeons
Campaign zone levels
Items missing slots/stats
And more...
Well they made it so you need much more XP now
Invoking now gives coupons and takes 3 trys to actually invoke.
Hourly quests got a XP buff but so did the the XP you need.
Have to wait for mod 7 so see if we just copy paste the game some more.
No word on dungeons but my bet is the releasing DV for mod 7 and re theme it a bit.
Some enchants are getting a fix this patch. and they talked about barkshield (yay 2k resist per stack do the devs even play the dungeons?)
So far we are not getting a lot of hope. The only positive change this mod was allowing stacks of RP for refinement.
I want to be positive but it feels like each time a good idea is posted they take it and run the opposite way with it.
@badbotlimit Can we get a update on what is happening with removed dungeons also with T2's as I don't think ECC,GWD,TOS drop any artifacts or rewards you can sell.
Rather disheartening some of these responses, as I said before, I don't want an easy victory, but some of this is overly hard, not challenging just stupidly harder then it should be and it erases all the fun I was having at under 60. I know I am a glass canon as a SW, but this isn't fun or funny anymore, lower levels Shadow Step into another mob or into a hole I was "aww @#$@!!!" and laugh, at 70 I want to scream "Why are they so close to each other?!?!" Why do they hit so hard and why are they so fast I can't heal myself fast enough except for those stones sold in Zen Market but then that cool down, 4 hits and its release and walk back, thats not an adventure, that's not a ADnD or DnD quest its repetive work and it's wearing thin...
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"If Stupidity got us into this, why can't it get us out?"
If you are going to scream "HEAL" at me and then curse at me because the heals are not coming fast enough for you liking, please have the common curiosity to do it in English, so I can laugh as you die. I play a vamp not a priest because I am not a heal bot.
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
They shouldve left dread ring and sharandar at 60 as a alternative path to leveling up and skipping the content that no one wants to do.
In addition, they should also gate tiamat with more boons like the old IWD entry.. this would stop the hey I just hit 70, bought 15k in AD blues and r6 enchants and now I can enter tiamat crowd.. Which makes it 100% undoable for multiple instances. Say you need like ten boons to enter. I think thats reasonable and would really help everyone involved.
Its supposed to be a goddess and should be combated by people who can fight her.
Rather disheartening some of these responses, as I said before, I don't want an easy victory, but some of this is overly hard, not challenging just stupidly harder then it should be and it erases all the fun I was having at under 60.
This. Plain and simple.
The new level 70 general difficulty is welcomed. The additional 25% HP to every. single. hostile NPC is not. I go into Sharandar daily delve, for example, and that little mini dungeon is fun and challenging. This is how it should be.
However, when I am not in that instance and in the open zone I shouldn't 'dread' running into Powries that pummel me like crazy because it now takes me a full five minutes to clear them when it used to take me only two. So now I utterly hate running into them, especially when a Powrie skirmish pulls more roaming Powries into the fray when all I want is to get to my next goal at the other end.
It's a farking time-sink I don't want to deal with and this. Is. The. Problem.
Granted: it is a ridiculously-simplified explanation because the problem is a lot more complex and involves a truckload of things all wrapped together. But yes: it (generally-speaking) can feel a little more like work sometimes. I will not proclaim that these changes are "driving me away" from the game or any of that nonsense. I will say that it's just plain become less fun that it was before with regard to the same content.
If the fun fades away then I'll go looking for something else to replace and reinstate that fun. if that means they change things up from here on out to bring the fun back then great! If it means an alternative game from a different developer grabs my attention first then so be it. Someone is going to get my attention and, if I'm having enough fun: my dollars, too.
This is the benefit if free-to-play: I, the player, get to pick and choose where I give my attention and time and if it's good enough: my money. Neverwinter has done a pretty good job with that for me over the last three years. But it's definitely not only losing it's shine, but starting to become badly tarnished in an ugly way for me.
Okay relatively new to Neverwinter, I had fun under level 60, my playstyle is casual, I don't have a guild, perfer to solo play until I can not.
After hitting level 60+ on my SW it seems all solo content has dried up. Don't get me wrong here, I LIKE this game, but lately it seems more like work then play. I am not looking for stupidly hard, a challenge, yes, but things seem well overly hard now.
I am not looking for build advice or to be told "Tactics" when you are trying to do dailies in Ice Wind and a Dire Polarbear almost wipes your HP down to a 1/4 with on swipe when you are looking for survivors and oh joy there are two.
The HP and regen some of these mobs have are insane.
Again, I am not looking to one shot stuff, but a 15 minute fight with a mob just to finish a quest like finding Blighted Acorns and that AP drain that a SW can't seem to interupt or get enough distance from, it makes this game more work then play when you solo and then I watch these other classes tear through them like it was nothing.
Makes me feel a little punished for playing a SC and a lot more for playing solo. I don't know, anyway I expect a lot of, "You are running the wrong build" or you should party more.
Still haven't finished most of my dailies in IWD because well everyone seems happy running a big circle Farming the HE and Briggins.
Congratulation ! You have understand everything / I work in real life / I dont need to works for a video game / I just want FUN / BASTA! And i dont farm for sell a rune 5 RARE 120 AD the UNITY / Cryptic have remove all good loot ITEM / Now i refin 24000 AD and i go to L4D2 / GOOD LUCK / NEW MODERN TIME SLAVESSS XD
There's always going to be a grindy work-like element to MMO's, unless someone has a radical idea to change the way they're played. It's been the same for every MMO I've played in the last twenty years. Some are better than others, as they realize you need to have as much fun in the game as grind.
Neverwinter's problem is the difficulty since Mod 6. There's basically no solo-friendly content at 70. Stuff can be soloed... sure, depending on class and gear, but at best it's a mindnumbing and frustrating way to play content that is typically easy and solo-friendly in any other MMO.
The difficulty of any DD content at 1600+ is a MASSIVE step-up from normal TotS, and all you can really hope is that you get carried through it by geared players. I doubt a 5-man group at 1600 iLvl would be able to do eLoL at all, and if they could they'd need some kind of super tank!
Add to that, the uninspiring rewards for most of that content and you have a problem. The devs seriously need to overhaul the end-game; bring back dungeons, improve rewards, make solo content easier, and have a better difficulty curve in all the 60-70 content; from easy solo progression content right through to difficult and challenging content with the best rewards.
Rather disheartening some of these responses, as I said before, I don't want an easy victory, but some of this is overly hard, not challenging just stupidly harder then it should be and it erases all the fun I was having at under 60.
...that's not a ADnD or DnD quest its repetive work and it's wearing thin...
I couldn't agree with you more. What really get me are all of the "learn how to play your class" and "you need better gear" responses. Since when has this game become a "one and only one way to play" type of game? (Of course that's a rhetorical question to which the answer is mod6) I don't have neither the time nor interest to "learn" the "Cryptic Approved" method for playing a GF.... I want to hop in the game a know that I can kick some butt with skill X, and maybe try skill Y, or, for grins and giggles go with skill Z. There used to be many viable ways to play every class in this game, some more effective or efficient than others. Now, it seems there is one and only one way to play a particular class, and if you're not successful, it's because you're not playing the game "correctly." This is a game, not a Calculus Integral problem.
Likewise, the "gear" argument brings about another problem that should not exist. You should never need premier gear to even stand a snowball's chance in Hell of staying alive. What happened to skill? Being able to dodge? Knowing when to shield? Making due with what you have until you can acquire something bigger and better? High end gear was once something that was saught after; it's the reason you ran T1/T2 dungeons. Now, it seems to be a prerequisite. Farm the vigilance quests, buy XP boosters, get your artifacts, and then either buy RP from the Zen store, or continue mindlessly farming it until you can level your artifact to the point where you can actually play the game.
No thank you to both accounts. I am a very casual player; I have little time to spend repeating the same mindless tasks over and over again. Nor do I want to. I know that not having the time to invest (nor the desire to do so) does put me at a disadvantage comparatively speaking, and that is something that I am willing to accept. I progress slower and have traditionally been "behind the curve" regarding gear and number of times I've repeated the same task. However, I've always had fun and have never had an issue fulfilling my purpose in groups. As a GF I could tank just as well as the rest of 'em, even without fully enchanted T2 gear, mainly because I used my brain and my wits. That is what the game used to offer; something for everyone. Now, its geared (no pun intended) to those with either massive amounts of time or massive amounts of money. And, to top it all off, it's not even FUN! Show me one person who actually enjoys the game; who enjoys running the same one dungeon over and over again; who enjoys completing the same quests over and over again; who enjoys doing nothing but hunting for RP so they can be actually be viable and have the opportunity to repeat the same one dungeon over and over again. Sigh.
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hammerslam1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 20Arc User
I usually don't post and have been playing since BETA. I have to agree with everything that is said here. I don't want things handed to me on a silver platter and want the challenges.
I am also seeing a reduction in players online. In the passed Protectors would be bustling with players when events are going on. Not so this last one last weekend. 10-12 players tops. I know there is much more instances but it kind of makes your wonder? Yes there is more instances now but still it looks a little thin to me. Maybe it had something to do with the 4th Holiday??
I hope the Dev's read and fix a lot of the issues as I love playing this game and would hate to see it like some of the others that just fade away and servers shut down.
with 1600, it is very barely playable, not good without a group, way too much grindings from 1600 to 2000, that would make many causal players giving up so easy, saying game is too hard, not fun to play, or takes too long to get many seals.
the boons were designed for 60 lvl, but now, almost no one could get boons at 70 lvl, it is very rare to get any help.
those 1-60 levels seem more fun to play until recent mobs' upgrades instead of actually being nerfed made the game very boring and too long to kill.
seem like these devs want to kill "alts" players, and i wont make any new alts, EQ2's new character alts are faster and you have options to get level short cuts if you can afford instant 90 levels alt as long you have a maxed out leveled main character.
devs are killing the fun, made it more work environment game. it is sad to see many players are leaving in droves.
I have given up on the hope this game will become fun again. Too many major bugs not being addressed in a timely manor, too much grinding with too little rewards, too little play style options, items too expensive, too many BOP or BOA changes making playing the economy way less fun, not enough respect from Cryptic to maintain players who contributed large amounts of real money, too much focus on making us open our wallets..... and I could go on for another hour or so. I log in once a week, play for about half an hour, only to see that bugs are still present after months, more nerfs killing the fun... and the proposals for the next mod will only add more to the levels of frustration for the casual / solo players. I've said it before... they should NEVER have changed ANY of the existing modules when they released mod6. That ruined the game for me... it's D and D.... each mod should ADD dungeons, not remove them. The only way things will get better is if REAL D and D players are in the driver seat of this games direction and not bean counters. So disappointing in the direction this game is heading.... certainly isn't anything like playing the pen/paper version. I will continue to check the forums and log in once in a while as I hang on to that last thread of hope things will get better but for now I am having tons of fun playing other games, which is the whole purpose of playing.... to have fun.
Take the extra time to do the job right and it will never come back to bite you in the A**
@gramps5scorpion The Executive Producer, Ron, is a self-proclaimed D&D fan, but note (if you listen to the podcast) he's playing max-level characters. He needs to play 3-4 hours a day maximum, with a fresh account, on a regular (bouncing around the internet) connection, no Zen: just start fresh and pick a paragon that is no longer represented at end-game (Combat Ranger, Furylock, etc) and really see what his game is like. Let him walk his way up to 60+ and widdle his character down to 70 and see if he could still hold his head high and say he is delivering a solid/enjoyable product, let alone a D&D game. See if he thinks, TPChris Perkins would murder his players so often and so quickly, penalizing them insidiously with 3minute-time-wasting injuries. See if he thinks there is even a story in mod6, aside from the meta one of players leaving/getting frustrated/rampant bugs/lag/etc. If you can do that (you are a god of some sort) you might see something like a D&D themed MMO emerge, else I think we (D&D enthusiasts and MMO players) are going to end up bitterly closing this chapter in our virtual lives and moving on.
Comments
People were asking for more challenging group content, which they got.
My one big question for you is, are you using "at level" blue gear? First, if you're not level 70, just get to level 70. Don't worry too much about the campaign areas until you're 70. They are too hard and too much of a grind for anyone level 61-69.
Second, when you turn 70, look on the AH for some cheap level 70 blue gear. The stats on the 70 gear is a pretty substantial upgrade, and will make doing the campaigns at 70 that much easier. After that, don't be afraid to look for help getting T1 gear. Most of those dungeons are doable, but tough...it helps to have friends to help you.
I am not even able to finish Foundry Quests listed as solo anymore.
It's depressing and as a casual player I don't play games to be made to feel weak and helpless against the the content. A 20 minute fight for one seed while you have 6 to gather to meet requirements to get 1/10 of what you need to earn a boon, thats not a game, it's work.
Do I want it handed to me? No, if I did I would pay for the unlock, but with this set up..... do not even believe paying for the unlock would be much help....
"If Stupidity got us into this, why can't it get us out?"
If you are going to scream "HEAL" at me and then curse at me because the heals are not coming fast enough for you liking, please have the common curiosity to do it in English, so I can laugh as you die. I play a vamp not a priest because I am not a heal bot.
"If Stupidity got us into this, why can't it get us out?"
If you are going to scream "HEAL" at me and then curse at me because the heals are not coming fast enough for you liking, please have the common curiosity to do it in English, so I can laugh as you die. I play a vamp not a priest because I am not a heal bot.
Had the exact same problem. I hit lvl 70, was stoked to finally "start the game" in the campaign areas, ran around to each of the three campaign areas only to get demolished by the first pack of mobs. I did grind a bit to gear up from the PVP store (I was already running level 70 blues), but even still, it's a real struggle to do anything.
On the other hand, I started a GWF, similar ilvl (~1700 for both), and it's been perfectly simple for me to solo.
The class is too weak, unfortunately. Not much else I can suggest except for try grinding forever to get enough gear to maybe survive, or start a new class. (Stupid, I know.)
It takes 45 minutes to do 4 spinward vigilante quests on a lvl 70 TR with 1500 ilvl and in full Alliance Raid/Assault gear... lol.
All I want is to get my Artifact MH on an alt but I don't have god tier enchants.
It's not fun. It's tedious.
They're taken a fast paced combat system and turned it into a slog.
I think the key thing they're missing here is
The charm of Neverwinter's combat system was always about being fast paced, and they slowed things down to a crawl.
It's not about slogging away at a big sack of hit points. It's about deftly executing a combination of moves and seeing your enemies laid to waste.
I wonder if they've considered increasing monsters' attack speed, but reducing damage as a solution to the "one hit wonder" problem.
So you get hit (or the chance to get hit more often) but for less damage. So instead of a Spitting Spider hitting you for 60k every 3 seconds, it hits your for 20k every second. The damage and lethality is still roughly the same, but mitigation, healing and dodging become more important, without being so critically important that you're either alive or dead.
Even then, you probably need a bit of a damage nerf in there, but combat would feel a lot better if you actually saw your HP tick up and down, instead of essentially the binary state we have now where you're either full health or dead.
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
Targeting max and BiS is supposed to be hard, long term goal and this game is still far from what i experienced and clearly took for "insane" or "impossible" in other MMOs. Its sad from a particular point of view, but still there are some foundry projects worth spending time in and the 70 lvl areas and T1s are either easy enough or possible to do after a while.
Domination or any PvP is, was and always be about "impossible" for players not spending lots of money or a lot of time (botnet managers/owners excluded - well its still money lost when such botnet is not rent).
Just dont fall for any "have to", play for fun and if there is no fun for u, dont play at all. Vast majority of games, especially MMOs, are based on trying to manage "spent time and currency"-"feel rewarded" ratio, which sooner or later fail, simply because its a virtual "nothing to get, nothing to lose" world, every sane being concludes to, and rarely a game developer do things for the sake of quality or real life values (being it sole entertainment even).
Not sure ive expressed it well enough, but rly, such forum threads or "contemplations" are pretty valueless, unless its a ground school topic (and that will rarely happen as well, because it would ...plenty of things).
I know until i hit 2k+ GS, the campaigns were.. difficult (ice wind dale was just about impossible), one thing i think they did that inadvertently hurt was the removal of all blue gear drops (except from dungeons) so the level 70 blue gear is FAIRLY expensive on the AH, and then the missing dungeons seem to really hurt getting "decent" gear to start doing the harder skirmishes/dungeons (epics), for me personally the only way i saw to get decent gear, was do PvP for the level 130 sets they had.. the little pvp event they just had really would of made that easier a few months back
once i had that gear though honestly the campaigns became soloable again EXCEPT for the dungeon in well of dragons, and after that is just the slow progression of building up boons, doing epics (1600 for some artifacts) then moving onto the 2k ones...
i think the gear progression was kinda scrambled/lost when they went to 70 cap.. and changed so much... also gear progression seems... minor at times, like the 130 to 137 does not seem that huge.. it helps more almost to get rank 10-12 runes for your items...
the FINAL thing they did that messed with people however, was the way stats scaled on the bonus vs your level.. it was sooooo weird to level 60-70 and see ALL my % for crit/power/defense/deflect go DOWN as i leveled.. because the way the numbers scale with higher levels.. THAT is messed up and honestly i think discourages and confuses players..
Overall difficulty
XP rewards in the new zones and campaign zones
Invocation
Hourly quests
Zone re-use
Removed dungeons
Campaign zone levels
Items missing slots/stats
And more...
Well they made it so you need much more XP now
Invoking now gives coupons and takes 3 trys to actually invoke.
Hourly quests got a XP buff but so did the the XP you need.
Have to wait for mod 7 so see if we just copy paste the game some more.
No word on dungeons but my bet is the releasing DV for mod 7 and re theme it a bit.
Some enchants are getting a fix this patch. and they talked about barkshield (yay 2k resist per stack do the devs even play the dungeons?)
So far we are not getting a lot of hope.
The only positive change this mod was allowing stacks of RP for refinement.
I want to be positive but it feels like each time a good idea is posted they take it and run the opposite way with it.
@badbotlimit Can we get a update on what is happening with removed dungeons also with T2's as I don't think ECC,GWD,TOS drop any artifacts or rewards you can sell.
"If Stupidity got us into this, why can't it get us out?"
If you are going to scream "HEAL" at me and then curse at me because the heals are not coming fast enough for you liking, please have the common curiosity to do it in English, so I can laugh as you die. I play a vamp not a priest because I am not a heal bot.
In addition, they should also gate tiamat with more boons like the old IWD entry.. this would stop the hey I just hit 70, bought 15k in AD blues and r6 enchants and now I can enter tiamat crowd.. Which makes it 100% undoable for multiple instances. Say you need like ten boons to enter. I think thats reasonable and would really help everyone involved.
Its supposed to be a goddess and should be combated by people who can fight her.
This. Plain and simple.
The new level 70 general difficulty is welcomed. The additional 25% HP to every. single. hostile NPC is not. I go into Sharandar daily delve, for example, and that little mini dungeon is fun and challenging. This is how it should be.
However, when I am not in that instance and in the open zone I shouldn't 'dread' running into Powries that pummel me like crazy because it now takes me a full five minutes to clear them when it used to take me only two. So now I utterly hate running into them, especially when a Powrie skirmish pulls more roaming Powries into the fray when all I want is to get to my next goal at the other end.
It's a farking time-sink I don't want to deal with and this. Is. The. Problem.
Granted: it is a ridiculously-simplified explanation because the problem is a lot more complex and involves a truckload of things all wrapped together. But yes: it (generally-speaking) can feel a little more like work sometimes. I will not proclaim that these changes are "driving me away" from the game or any of that nonsense. I will say that it's just plain become less fun that it was before with regard to the same content.
If the fun fades away then I'll go looking for something else to replace and reinstate that fun. if that means they change things up from here on out to bring the fun back then great! If it means an alternative game from a different developer grabs my attention first then so be it. Someone is going to get my attention and, if I'm having enough fun: my dollars, too.
This is the benefit if free-to-play: I, the player, get to pick and choose where I give my attention and time and if it's good enough: my money. Neverwinter has done a pretty good job with that for me over the last three years. But it's definitely not only losing it's shine, but starting to become badly tarnished in an ugly way for me.
Neverwinter's problem is the difficulty since Mod 6. There's basically no solo-friendly content at 70. Stuff can be soloed... sure, depending on class and gear, but at best it's a mindnumbing and frustrating way to play content that is typically easy and solo-friendly in any other MMO.
The difficulty of any DD content at 1600+ is a MASSIVE step-up from normal TotS, and all you can really hope is that you get carried through it by geared players. I doubt a 5-man group at 1600 iLvl would be able to do eLoL at all, and if they could they'd need some kind of super tank!
Add to that, the uninspiring rewards for most of that content and you have a problem. The devs seriously need to overhaul the end-game; bring back dungeons, improve rewards, make solo content easier, and have a better difficulty curve in all the 60-70 content; from easy solo progression content right through to difficult and challenging content with the best rewards.
I couldn't agree with you more. What really get me are all of the "learn how to play your class" and "you need better gear" responses. Since when has this game become a "one and only one way to play" type of game? (Of course that's a rhetorical question to which the answer is mod6) I don't have neither the time nor interest to "learn" the "Cryptic Approved" method for playing a GF.... I want to hop in the game a know that I can kick some butt with skill X, and maybe try skill Y, or, for grins and giggles go with skill Z. There used to be many viable ways to play every class in this game, some more effective or efficient than others. Now, it seems there is one and only one way to play a particular class, and if you're not successful, it's because you're not playing the game "correctly." This is a game, not a Calculus Integral problem.
Likewise, the "gear" argument brings about another problem that should not exist. You should never need premier gear to even stand a snowball's chance in Hell of staying alive. What happened to skill? Being able to dodge? Knowing when to shield? Making due with what you have until you can acquire something bigger and better? High end gear was once something that was saught after; it's the reason you ran T1/T2 dungeons. Now, it seems to be a prerequisite. Farm the vigilance quests, buy XP boosters, get your artifacts, and then either buy RP from the Zen store, or continue mindlessly farming it until you can level your artifact to the point where you can actually play the game.
No thank you to both accounts. I am a very casual player; I have little time to spend repeating the same mindless tasks over and over again. Nor do I want to. I know that not having the time to invest (nor the desire to do so) does put me at a disadvantage comparatively speaking, and that is something that I am willing to accept. I progress slower and have traditionally been "behind the curve" regarding gear and number of times I've repeated the same task. However, I've always had fun and have never had an issue fulfilling my purpose in groups. As a GF I could tank just as well as the rest of 'em, even without fully enchanted T2 gear, mainly because I used my brain and my wits. That is what the game used to offer; something for everyone. Now, its geared (no pun intended) to those with either massive amounts of time or massive amounts of money. And, to top it all off, it's not even FUN! Show me one person who actually enjoys the game; who enjoys running the same one dungeon over and over again; who enjoys completing the same quests over and over again; who enjoys doing nothing but hunting for RP so they can be actually be viable and have the opportunity to repeat the same one dungeon over and over again. Sigh.
I am also seeing a reduction in players online. In the passed Protectors would be bustling with players when events are going on. Not so this last one last weekend. 10-12 players tops. I know there is much more instances but it kind of makes your wonder? Yes there is more instances now but still it looks a little thin to me. Maybe it had something to do with the 4th Holiday??
I hope the Dev's read and fix a lot of the issues as I love playing this game and would hate to see it like some of the others that just fade away and servers shut down.
Just my two cents.
Thanks
the boons were designed for 60 lvl, but now, almost no one could get boons at 70 lvl, it is very rare to get any help.
those 1-60 levels seem more fun to play until recent mobs' upgrades instead of actually being nerfed made the game very boring and too long to kill.
seem like these devs want to kill "alts" players, and i wont make any new alts, EQ2's new character alts are faster and you have options to get level short cuts if you can afford instant 90 levels alt as long you have a maxed out leveled main character.
devs are killing the fun, made it more work environment game. it is sad to see many players are leaving in droves.